Octane Results:
Leadership

Michael Loban is an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Cincinnati and cofounder of InfoTrust, a digital analytics consulting and technology company helping marketers use data to make smarter decisions. Michael and his cofounder, Alex Yastrebenetsky, were recently invited to attend a CEO workshop with EO founder Verne Harnish. We asked Michael about his top takeaways. Here’s what he shared.

What better acknowledgement of World Entrepreneurs’ Day (WED)—a day devoted to celebrating the leadership and innovation that entrepreneurs bring—than by sharing lessons learned from the founder of EO, Verne Harnish? In addition to founding EO, Verne has coached thousands of entrepreneurs, launched Gazelles Growth Institute and authored bestselling books including Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up. (And that’s the short list.) (more…)

One of my favorite insights about scaling up organizations comes from Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn.

As a guest host on Reid’s podcast, Masters of Scale, Tim Ferriss highlights his 10 Commandments of Startup Success, and shares an excerpt from Ten Thousand Hours with Reid Hoffman, written by Ben Casnocha, Reid’s former chief of staff.(more…)

A version of this article originally appeared on the EO Melbourne blog. The content has been edited and reprinted here with permission.

Stories of entrepreneurs overcoming early obstacles and ultimately achieving success on their journey can be found on every blog or business site. And these tales leave many of us thinking, “Wow! They did all that?” Some people even regard today’s entrepreneurs as modern day heroes or, even, superheroes.

With superhero movies debuting regularly on the big screen, it’s natural to make the comparison. After all, those caped crusaders and masked heroes may have awesome moves and incredible powers, they are essentially hardworking individuals overcoming challenges in often unexpected and bold ways.

Let’s take a closer look at the characteristics of superheroes and spot the parallels with entrepreneurs.

The original version of this article appeared on Resonate’s blog. Resonate is an Australian customer experience management (CEM) provider, founded by EO Sydney member Jeff Carruthers.

At many well-meaning companies, customer experience or advocacy initiatives are driven from the top down or assigned to specific departments. However, customer satisfaction isn’t simply a goal for the marketing, sales or account services departments.

It should be an organizational priority that ultimately helps drive the entire business forward. Here’s how to accomplish this in four steps. (more…)

Written by David Louden. Dave is a co-founder and partner at Fathom, a strategy and creative consultancy based in Connecticut. In the past 25-plus years, he has worked with leading companies and brands to design futures worth fighting for. Dave also conceived and developed the ubiquitous VeriSign Secure Site Seal and helped grow several start-ups to successful IPOs and acquisitions.

Recently, my team finished a sizable and important project. It was a great team effort, took a lot of time, and left us feeling very proud of our work. What did we do when we finished?

We got right back to work.

This experience—which I’m guessing is familiar to many of you—hit me hard. With how much we put into the work, why didn’t we take time to pause and celebrate? (more…)